Alex Bledsoe - The Hum and the Shiver

“I know. But either I can’t follow directions worth a damn, or they covered up the end of that road sometime in the last few days and made it look like it’d always been that way.” Or, he thought, the stories of the Tufa have more truth in them than I used to believe.

Howell leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. He shifted into his Jason Robards mode, the fatherly editor who knows what’s best for his staff. “You’ve still got the assignment, Don.”

“I know, Sam.”

“No, I mean it. Your job is riding on this. I let it slide when you skipped those high school football games and wrote the stories from tapes off the radio, or when you ‘pretended’ to accidentally delete those spelling bee shots that you never took in the first place. This is your last chance, and I’m not feeling too generous about it right now. I admit running into Bobby Pafford can make a man a little shaky, but it’s not enough. You clear on this?”

Don nodded. He felt like a kid in the principal’s office. “Yeah.”

“I want it for next week’s issue. All original, with your own photos, not cobbled together off the Internet. In fact, I want to hear the tape of it.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Don, I like you. That’s why you’ve still got a job. But no, I don’t trust you. You’ve lied to me enough times already.”

Don stood and walked back to his car, feeling a numb tingling on his face and neck. In the rearview mirror, he saw that his skin was still red with shame.

Marshall Goins looked up from painting the Catamount Corner’s porch rail. A white Altima pulled into the parking space right in front of him, and by the time he put down the brush and stood, Craig Chess was already bounding up the steps. “Good morning, Mr. Goins,” he said cheerily, extending his hand.

Marshall displayed his palms. “Sorry, Reverend, wouldn’t want to get paint all over you.”

“Isn’t it awfully early on a Saturday to be working so hard?”

“When you run your own business, every day’s a workday. And with my wife in charge, I’m lucky to get off for Christmas or the Fourth of July.”

Craig saw an opening. “You celebrate Christmas, then?”

He laughed. “Hell, don’t everybody?”

“Not Jews or Buddhists.”

“But I bet they still get the day off, don’t they? Well, that is, unless they’re married to Peggy.”

Craig laughed. Once again a Tufa had blocked any further religious conversation. “Beautiful morning, though, isn’t it?”

“Is that.”

“Is the café open so a fellow can get a cup of coffee?”

“I believe the wife’s in there. We’ve got a full house for the continental breakfast, so I’m not sure anything’s left.”

“Ah, just some coffee and a visit is all I need.”

Marshall sadly shook his head as Craig went inside. He liked the young minister, and there was something poignant about the boy’s doomed sincerity. He just hoped Craig didn’t take it personally when his church went belly-up.

Craig went through the lobby and into the little café. It was empty, and the table of goodies was pretty well picked clean. The carafe still held some coffee, though, so he put some into a Styrofoam cup, along with a package of sugar. He grabbed a plastic spoon, returned to the lobby, and leaned on the front counter. “Good morning, Mrs. Goins.”

Peggy looked up and smiled. “Why, Reverend, you can call me Peggy, you know. Everyone does.”

“Good morning, then, Peggy-you-know.”

She giggled. Craig was exactly the kind of man she would’ve found irresistible some thirty years earlier, on the trailing edge of the sexual revolution. She still fondly recalled venturing forth into the world and finding her Tufa forthrightness no longer sent men screaming for the hills. Now, though, her perspective, if not her libido, was considerably different. “I never knew a minister could be such a flirt.”

“Can I expect you and Marshall at church tomorrow? I promise a ten-minute sermon, no shouting about eternal damnation, and absolutely no speaking in tongues.”

“Oh, we can’t take the morning off, Reverend. We have guests that need tending. Some of them are even Yankees, and Lord knows what they might get into if we left them on their own.”

Craig expected her response; he looked on this as just another early skirmish in a long and concentrated campaign. “Well, if things work out so you can make it, I’d love to see you there. How much do I owe you for the coffee?”

“Not a thing, Reverend. And stop by anytime.” She smiled and momentarily resembled the girl she’d once been. Then her eyes opened wide. “Oh, goodness, would you look at that.”

“What?”

She tapped the plastic spoon in his coffee. It split, revealing two spoons stuck together. “I always heard that if you accidentally put two spoons in a coffee cup, it’s a sign you’re about to get married.”

He chuckled. “That’d be a miracle for sure, Peggy. Right now I haven’t even got a girlfriend.”

“Well, you might want to keep your eyes open. I’m pretty good at reading signs, they tell me.”

“I’ll sure do that.”

Outside, Craig asked Marshall, “Mind if I leave my car here? I was going to stroll around town a little bit, enjoy the breeze.”

“Reckon so,” Marshall said as he painted the railing’s underside.

Craig walked toward the post office. Sure enough, Rockhouse Hicks was in his usual place, all alone at one end of the long, narrow porch. Craig sat down in the rocking chair beside the old man and said cheerily, “Good morning.”

“It’s morning,” Hicks said without turning. He wore threadbare jeans, old loafers, and a flannel shirt whose collar points had worn away.

“You pretty much run this place, don’t you?”

“The porch?”

“The town.”

Now Hicks turned very slightly toward him. “Me? I’m just one more retired old fart with nothing to do all day.”

“Yeah, but I’ve seen how people treat you. They look up to you.”

Hicks frowned, then resumed his neutral expression. “I think somebody’s been talking out of turn, Reverend.”

“No, sir, I just pay attention. I see how people defer to you. And I was always taught to respect my elders.”

“You want me to get people to come to that church of yours, don’t you?”

“No, sir. I’d just like to invite you to come.”

Hicks almost laughed out loud. “I don’t think that’s too likely, Reverend. Not too likely at all.”

“Why?”

A new voice said, “This Yankee bothering you, Uncle Rockhouse?” The word came out Unca.

Craig looked up. A tall, broad-shouldered young man stood on the sidewalk leading up to the porch. His face was almost femininely handsome, with thick pouty lips and sleepy eyes. He wore a faded cowboy hat with the side brims rolled up, and black hair fell to his shoulders.

“Naw,” Hicks said. “This-here’s the new preacher over to Smithborough.”

Craig smiled, stood, and extended his hand. “Craig Chess, of the Triple Springs Methodist Church.”

The younger man was a full head taller than Craig. “Get the fuck away from me,” he snapped contemptuously. “You need anything, Unca Rockhouse, you call me.”

“Sure thing, Stoney,” Hicks said.

The tall young man went into the post office. He sauntered, just as Dwayne Gitterman had done in the convenience store, but with even more arrogance.

“Reckon I’ll leave you to your rocking, Mr. Hicks,” Craig said tightly. His temper seldom flared, but it did so now, and he knew he needed to leave. He crossed the highway toward the Fast Grab. He did not check for traffic, but in Needsville, that was not terribly risky.